Toyota
Reigning champions Toyota have really struggled this year in the WEC, and have been relegated to third best of the factory teams.
Toyota’s margin in 2014 was so extreme that it looks as though the Japanese/Cologne outfit haven’t developed the Le Mans Test DayTS040 as much as they would have liked and now, find themselves very much on the back foot.
The 2015-specification TS040 has been significantly reworked according to Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director Pascal Vasselon, who said his updated car is no revolution, but it’s an evolution in almost every department.
Toyota claim 80% of the TS040 car is new, with much revised features all over the car. Toyota are running a two-piece monocoque in 2015, constructed from Carbon Fibre composite, with the engine mounted in the middle for 50/50 weight distribution.
A normally-aspirated V8, 3.4 Litre petrol engine drives the rear wheels, producing 500hp. The extracted electric energy is re-used to provide 250hp of boost to the rear wheels through an electric motor within the gearbox casing; altogether having a final output of 1000 BHP. What uptoyo4tmakes the Hybrid different on the Toyota, is that that they also run a second MGU on the rear axle; bringing an additional 250BHP and providing the car with a good overall top speed and of course the magic 1000BHP.
Toyota remained in the 6 Mega Joule’s class in its bid to defend its WEC title with a revised version of last year’s TS040 Hybrid system, but also features an updated version of its super capacitor energy-storage system – retained rather than using Lithium batteries.
The V8 power unit is 90° mounted and sits very low in the chassis to optimize the centre of gravity. Each cylinder has four valves each with titanium con rods with an updated crankshaft, crank case and new designed spark plug. All this is connected to a transversal 7 speed sequential Aluminium gearbox.
A neat change to the 2015 TS040 is the electronically-controlled braking balance, the hydraulic and regenerative braking force. The capacitor’s charging level and vehicle
speed determine how much regenerative braking force is required and collected. Recovered energy is stored in a super capacitor located in the cockpit next to the
driver. On top of this unit sits the DENSO inverter, where the electrical energy is stored up ready to be deployed.
For the Suspension, Toyota have independent front and rear double wishbones with push-rod all round; torsion bar springs at the front and coil spring design which lays on top of the transmission. These are mounted from the chassis bulkhead to the duel hydraulic brakes of which are Monobloc light alloy Carbon vented brakes.
The second-generation TS040 has updated aerodynamics too. With a new front end – including the crash structure and rear – Toyota has again produced high and low down-force aerodynamic packages with Silverstone and Le Mans set ups fully optimized for the weekend.
Toyota has new rear bumper pods behind the wheels 09-TMG-LMP1-2015which flick the airflow upwards towards the single main-plane of the rear wing. This is something that is similar to the Monkey seat in F1, which is a mini wing used to direct the exhaust plume to the rear wing to generate down-force.
What takes the Toyota away from its rivals is that they don’t have any inlets on the nose for air to pass through, but instead run an ultra-flat profile wing blended into the nose cone. This tells us Toyota are aiming to generate a high amount of air flow up and over the car – as well as underneath it. This has potential benefits and drawbacks, as it could potentially generate more down-force than its rivals with a better flow to the rear wing and diffuser, but hamper the car in straight line speed.
The small inlets on the nose structure panels feature a wire mesh vent, mainly for cooling brake fluid or part of the electrical internals. Toyota – to assist aero – have covered part of the mesh so that the air flow over them is less Le Mans 24 Hoursturbulent; so won’t interfere with the rest of the stream lines over the car passing to the rear wing main-plane and diffuser. Although this is very small, it could have a big effect on the rear.
They have also kept the low drag nose and footplate at the front of the car. This was used in 2014 and made the car very quick in a straight line. The footplate sets up a very small but neat vortex which doesn’t disturb the streamlines over the rest of the car and causes less interference; resulting in a cleaner less ambient pressure air flow. Consequently, Toyota should benefit from more the rear down-force.
Toyota will use one guide vane below the lights – unlike Audi who have 2. The reason they are situated there is to help the cars balance when braking. Toyota may feel it
will create too much turbulent air that disrupts the flow to the rear, so in order only have one. Depending on a car’s characteristics, some teams may feel they don’t need them, and in this case Toyota have voted otherwise. But we could see them feature come the high down-force tracks on the WEC calendar.
Overall the Toyota is a very tidy car, but still seems to be a higher down-force setup than Porsche but roughly on par with Audi.